Happy Halloween: Carve A Pumpkin With A Rifle [Video]

Carving pumpkins into jack-o-lanterns has been a traditional activity for a happy Halloween.

Pumpkin carving with bullets fired from a weapon (only in a safe location such as a gun range) rather than a manually with a knife is a somewhat new variation on that theme.

Sharpshooter Kirsten Joy Weiss shows the technique to carve the eyes and mouth into the jack-o-lantern using a Ruger 10/22 rifle in a new video uploaded to her popular YouTube channel.

Weiss explains on the video that has about 160,000 views so far that this Halloween-oriented technique is a lighthearted, not altogether serious challenge and shooting game, which fits in with her overall motto about experiencing the fun, challenge, and joy of shooting.

Weiss is not the first person to carve out, as it were, this territory.

As the Inquisitrpreviously reported earlier this month, for example, a video of pumpkin carving done with a Henry rifle instead of a knife went viral as made by an individual assumed to be named Bud on YouTube channel hickok45. As its stated purpose, the video was apparently meant to “educate the masses” about how to properly and safely carve a pumpkin.

In her video, Kirsten Joy Weiss explains that she is using a 10/22 rather than a bolt action that she noted creates a minor shot pattern variation as compared to the latter. By way of disclaimer, she also noted that pumpkins “do whatever the heck they want” even if you are an expert marksman or markswoman.

[image via YouTube]“Now remember, pumpkins are volatile creatures (really, they are! You’ll see why once you shoot one). They don’t cooperate perfectly, but if you set perfection aside and simply shoot, you’ll love your results,” Weiss added on her website. “A safe shooting spot with a berm,” is also necessary. She advised that the back of the pumpkin is actually the best part when it come to precision marksmanship.

[photo via Facebook]An All-American shooter while on a rifle scholarship at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Weiss has won national and international shooting titles and was on the short list for the U.S. Olympic team before becoming a professional shooter and trickshot artist. “She won the Women’s National Champion Gold Medal at the 2012 NRA National Smallbore Championships and placed No. 2 overall,” the Washington Free Beaconreported.

For her 50,000-plus YouTube subscribers, Weiss has also demonstrated gun yoga and gun pilates among other things.

Admiring her handiwork (see video embedded below) in carving a “Quasimodo” pumpkin, Kirsten Joy Weiss declared that “That is so cool…I love it! …He is so cute with the little tooth and everything. …The front doesn’t look too bad, but the back is awesome.…I shall put a light in him and he shall be mine forever. Or for as long as he’s not rotten. One of the two.”

In April, Kirsten Joy Weiss demonstrated how many Peeps, the marshmallow candy, it took to stop a.22 caliber bullet.

Weiss’ pumpkin-carving video even got a mention in the opening monologue on Late Night with Seth Meyers, when the host mentioned how a professional markswoman carved a jack-o-lantern by firing a rifle at it. Meyers then irreverently put an image of the “finished product” on the screen, which instead appeared to be a photo of actor Mickey Rourke.

“For many, Halloween is a cherished childhood holiday heralded by the official carving of a scary face into a pumpkin, thus making it a Jack O’ Lantern. For gun nuts, it’s just another reason to shoot stuff,” the anti-gun Raw Story website opined.

What do you think of the Kirsten Joy Weiss technique of carving a pumpkin with a rifle and creating a gun-o-lantern?